1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates in general to computer file systems, and more particularly to a data structure for configuring connections between a file system residing on a local workstation and a file system residing on a remote host system.
2. Description of the Related Art
Connecting a workstation to a host, known as host workstation connectivity, may be a relatively straight forward terminal connection or emulation. It may also be a rather complex connection such as connecting, mapping, and converting files and directories from a host file system to a workstation file system to support a scenario such as Remote Edit/Compile/Debug.
Remote Edit/Compile/Debug provides a workstation environment for performing the edit, compile, and debug tasks associated with host application development. Application parts, such as COBOL source code, COBOL copy books, and host JCL, are kept in partitioned datasets (PDS) or partitioned datasets extended (PDSE) on the host. These files may be accessed and used through a project, such as an IBM® Multiple Virtual Storage (MVS®) project (IBM® and MVS® are registered trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation in the United States, other countries, or both.). The names appearing on the workstation for the host PDS and PDSE members depend upon how the MVS drives are defined during Remote Edit/Compile/Debug setup.
Remote Edit/Compile/Debug can provide many benefits. Host data sets may be accessed from the workstation. After completing the required configuration, a workstation project can connect to PDS or PDSE data sets on the host and include members in the project. These host files may then be accessed as if they were workstation files. Host files may be edited and compiled from the workstation. Jobs may be submitted, monitored, and debugged from the workstation.
However, using the Remote Edit/Compile/Debug for host development requires communications to be configured at the workstation and at the host. This configuration may be quite complex as the following configuration example illustrates.
Host configuration to support connectivity for Remote Edit/Compile/Debug may comprise the following steps:    1. Install, configure, and start a communications protocol on the host, such as the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP).    2. Install and configure a remote execution server on the host, such as Remote Execution Server for MVS.    3. Further configure TCP/IP to automatically start the remote execution server. For example, by adding the following statements to a data set PROFILE.TCPIP:            AUTOLOG        RXPROC        ENDAUTOLOG            4. Install and configure a Network File System (NFS) server. Such configuration may be accomplished by modifying an NFS site attributes data set such that a default parameter ‘nopcnfsd’ is changed to ‘pcnfsd’.    5. To enable file extension mapping, the site attributes data set may be further modified by changing the default parameter ‘sfmax=0’ to ‘sfmax=1’, and by changing the default parameter ‘nofileextmap’ to ‘fileextmap’. A default file extension mapping data set may be specified by adding the parameter ‘sidefile(mapping_dsn)’, where mapping_dsn is the name of the file extension mapping data set. The file extension mapping data set must have a name of the form hlq.NFS.MAPPING, where hlq can be any high level qualifier, and it must be allocated with DCB=(recfm=fb, lrecl=80, blksize=400). Such a file extension mapping data set may contain either a default or a user-specified mapping such as the following mappings:            col 1        |        V        #NFS.MAPHNG        **.SYSADATA .ADT        **.COBOL .CBL        **.PLIOPT .PLI        **.PLI .PLI        **.COBCOPY .CPY        **.OBJ .OBJ        **.LOAD .EXE        **.CLIST .CMD        **.SIGYCLST .CMD        **.CNTL .JCL        **.JCL .JCL        **.LISTING .LST        **.OUTLIST .OUT            6. Install the Remote Edit/Compile/Debug host component.    7. Start TCP/IP and NFS server.
Workstation configuration to support connectivity for Remote Edit/Compile/Debug may comprise the following additional steps:    1. Install, configure, and start TCP/IP on the workstation.    2. Install and configure the NFS Client.    3. Start the NFS client with the following command:            net use m: \\yourhost\youruser,text,crlf yourpassword /user:youruser where youruser and yourpassword are a userid and password and where m is an available drive letter.            4. If the connection to the host was successful, disconnect before the next step using the disconnect command:            net use m:/d            5. To enable file extension mapping, reconnect to the host with mapping by specifying fileextmap with the following command:            net use m: \\yourhost\youruser,text,crlf,fileextmap yourpassword /user:youruser            6. Verify that the remote execution server is started by entering the following command:            rsh yourhost -lyouruser/password timewhich should provide the output of the time command if the remote execution server is running.        
As the above demonstrates, conventional configuration of host workstation connectivity is complex with many opportunities for errors. Such complexity may also affect the performance and reliability of conventional host workstation connectivity. Thus, there is a clearly felt need for a method of, system for, and computer program product for providing an improved easy-to-use and more reliable data structure for configuring connections between a file system residing on the local workstation and a file system residing on a remote host system.